


Drops of Jupiter

by Momo_Cicerone



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Bad Poetry, College AU, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hades Ulquiorra, Merman Ulquiorra, Modern AU, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-07-13 20:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7136381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Momo_Cicerone/pseuds/Momo_Cicerone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Inches close, galaxies apart</i> —They've been missing each other every lifetime. Will this be their last?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, beautiful person! I've got a lot to explain about this. First of all it would seem that neither the title nor the summary OR this first chapter/prologue make any sense. I promise they will in the future. I will **not** write subsequent chapters in poetry format. This, as I mentioned earlier, it's just a prologue (which again, will make sense later).

 

 

 

* * *

_— **The beginning** ,_

_if there ever was one_

_has long fallen into oblivion_ —

* * *

 

 

_(Oh, Persephone)_

 

They say the Gods loved you so

The earth was punished for my greed.

I held your freedom, six pomegranate seeds

You held my sanity, hand clutched to my dreams.

 

Spring died out

They called in winter

You sat on a throne of moondust and cinder

We burnt earth to drought

 

_(Don't leave, Persephone)_

 

I've built you a bed of withered roses

Brittle thorns can't bite into your flesh

Burnt petals won't paint your skin with bruises

They'll blossom at the beat of your chest

 

I'll write you one and a million proses

I'll feed you with love in deathly doses

 

We can rule the underworld together

Die a thousand deaths and live forever

 

_(Farewell, Persephone)_

 

March calls you away

To where you don't belong anymore

Go, ended be your stay

Sail off to Acheron's shore

 

But tell me

Just before you go,

 

Did you miss the sun while I kept you prisoned in my reign of night?

Was the moon too shiny, were the stars too bright?

 

Did you wish for spring in days of winter

While I wished for you to end my bitter

 

I wished for you,

I always,

I wish for winter.

 

_(Until we meet again)_

 

* * *

_—It feels like a million years_

_since love decided to slip through his fingers every time_

_**until the end of time**_ —

* * *

 


	2. As one: Are not intertwined

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He found it, finally found it—_
> 
>  
> 
> —On the tips of his fingers, beating at the rhythm of a newfound emotion, he feels the urge to reach out for the warmth of hers, for a hint of reassurance that _it’s there_ , and he’s not imagining it, what he’s been looking for so long without even believing it existed—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, there’s so much I want to say about this, but I’ll try to keep it short. First of all congrats for making it through the sappy poetry hahaha. If you haven’t read any of my previous fic (namely IYG), um… be prepared for some semi-angst. This fic is about missed chances. About things that weren’t meant to be. About almost-love stories and being so close to something that could have shaken the cosmos into a million supernovas. Or at least, that’s how you feel it could have been. This is about chasing and believing and losing and healing. It’s about the one who got away. The one you never had in the first place. 
> 
> About this fic, all the chapter titles are gonna be excerpts from the canon poem at the beginning of “Goodbye Halcyon days”, everything else is mine. The title Drops of Jupiter is from the band Train and I wholeheartedly suggest you go listen to it and die in ulquihime feels.

 

* * *

  _—Inches close,_

_galaxies apart—_

* * *

 

.

He’s less than half of what he used to be.

Reduced to broken wings and crippled down to pieces, he stands impotently as the last remains of life drain out of his body. He’s going back to dust, far back from hollow and all the way back into nothingness, to that place where beginning and end share the same name.

Death is barely seconds away. It sizzles viciously in the wind, takes off chunks of his wings in a gust of stardust and disappears them into thin air. There won’t be anything left of him to mourn when this is over, not a grave to despise after he’s gone. No body to bury, no memory to reminisce.

Back to zero, as if he never existed.

Time stills at the sight of her, frames her face like a picture. Burnt orange and brown and dainty fingers clutched to her chest, she looks like a painting of autumn leaves and sunset twilight. Like the horizon before the end —so fitting yet so wrong at the same time, he feels like they belong elsewhere, like they’ve been misplaced in the wrong place in time. Their eyes meet, but he doesn’t know what to make of her expression, of the knitted brows and trembling lips that scream unspoken farewells.

_Is it relieve? Satisfaction? Joy to finally be free and see him die before her eyes?_

_No_ , he decides. It’s unfathomable that she would harbor ill feelings towards anyone, including himself. It wouldn’t be her, not the girl who heals her own enemies, the one who follows a stranger to the depths of hell without a second thought, the one naive enough to believe that doing so her friends would be spared. It can only be one thing. But he wonders, maybe deep down wishes if the gleam in her eyes could be something more than compassion. The mere thought of that possibility eases him, channels everything else away. He forgets about wars and missions and everything that doesn’t matter anymore. He lets himself fade away, drifts off to nihility as a bittersweet feeling takes over him.

_He found it, finally found it_ —

—On the tips of his fingers, beating at the rhythm of a newfound emotion, he feels the urge to reach out for the warmth of hers, for a hint of reassurance that _it’s there_ , and he’s not imagining it, what he’s been looking for so long without even believing it existed—

_“Do I frighten you, girl?”_ He says with uncharacteristic placidness. This time, the words coming out of his lips are no longer a threat, nor a challenge. All mockery and condescendence gone, he asks because he’s curious for the honest truth. And maybe this time, if he gets a different answer, then he would die knowing that at least he left _something_ in this world, a permanent impression that would last after he’s gone.

Maybe she will remember him. When her inner demons come to her, maybe she will think of him.

“ _No, you don’t,_ ” She breathes, hand reaching out to touch him.

All hope dies, and he’s left empty.

_“I see.”_

Half a second too late, she misses him by less than an inch, her hand catching on nothing but thin air.

.

.

But he does leave something behind. Right between the space where their hands never intertwined, right after he vanishes; it lingers in the air, attaches itself to her fingertips and finds a home in her—

 

_—The heart._

It has always belonged to her.

 

 

* * *

  _—So close to together,_

_so far from forever—_

* * *

 

 

Ulquiorra lies awake, a pair of emerald green blinking at the morning light that filters through the window pane of his bedroom. It’s _that_ dream again. The one with the abducted girl and the bat-winged monster, where towers with moon shape windows raised, where deserts were reigned by a sky where the sun always slept. The dream filled with white robes and hollow memories and creatures who disintegrated before they could be touched. He knows this dream, knows it very well. He’s been having the same dreams all his life, after all. Scattered between time, never knowing what they mean, or why they feel like a long lost memory that he can’t quite remember. They used to be the reason why he lost himself in history and sci-fi books as a kid, just the incessant search for answers when he didn’t even know what the question was. A sense of validation, if you must, that it wasn’t just a child’s hyper active imagination. With time, the dreams ceased. They became just a fond childhood memory that only he remembered. But lately they’ve been coming back to him a little more defined, more precise than ever.

He brushes the back of his hand against his eyes to wipe the unshed moisture off. The summer sunlight is hurting his sight. Or maybe he’s overly exhausted from hours of searching the internet for decent apartment on lease in downtown Tokyo. (Whatever it is, he’s certainly not tearing up upon a dream that feels too realistic to be part of his imagination.)

Grunting to himself, he pulls the bedsheets away and gets off bed, maneuvering his way through the piles of books carefully stacked in arguably every flat surface of his crowded room. He really can’t help his fascination with books even after all these years, one could say is part of the perks of being a college student double majoring in literature and history.

He sits before his computer and picks up his phone, which glimmers with about fifteen unread messages from Grimmjow. Sighing internally, he skim over the screen. It escalates very quickly from shameless begging to angry death threats; the man just won’t give him peace until he agrees to go with him in his trip to Karakura.

But he really has more important things to do. Flights to book and apartment hunting in faraway places. He needs to start sorting out the books he’ll leave behind and the ones he’ll take with him (an impossible task, if you ask him), look for part time jobs in the new city and settle his bank account. Real life awaits, and he’s way behind everything.    

But the dream, it just won’t let him alone. Like a heartfelt regret, it clings stubbornly to his memory.

Ulquiorra opens a worn out notebook and finds a new page, he leans over his desk and lets the calligraphy pen bite on the paper, gently forming the words:

_Oh, Persephone_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had given up on this fic but I suddenly felt like working on it, so... *shrugs*


	3.  [ As two: Do not share the same form ]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “D-Do you… believe in soulmates, Ulquiorra-kun?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One year later, I am back. There is no excuse. This fic will be finished.

* * *

_—It’s an almost-love story, as he remembers it—_

* * *

 

 

She falls into the dark waters head first, burnt orange strands weaving into the midnight blue ocean. Swallowed by darkness, a trail of air bubbles escape her lips as the ice cold water fills her open mouth, burning out the last remains of oxygen in her lungs. She convulses in pain; her body twitches in search for something to hold on to, but all her hands can grasp is debris and sea water.

He watches her fall into the sea, beholds as her inanimate figure sinks into the depths of the ocean. Lost and vulnerable and totally out of place, she becomes one with the storm, drifts in unison with the wave current that pull her downwards. Her dark bronze hair catches on a faint gleam of moonlight, incandescent in the dead of night, like the dying sun at the darkest hour of dusk. Something in him triggers, an uncanny urge that sends him swimming towards the girl with the coral hair. His arm circle in a tight grip around her waist, securing her body to his, he kicks his tail as he propels himself into the surface.

The morning tide washes up the shore when he finally reaches the beach, panting at the added weight of her body. He throws her against the sand, not sure what to do with her — _d_ _rowning_ humans he knows well. Saving them, on the other hand, is a complete novelty. The impact of the hit brings her back to consciousness, and he watches in disgust as she coughs air back to her lungs, her lips parting to throws up the sea water out of her system.

_Humans are ugly_ , he thinks to himself. Their skin so pale and bland, not a single scale shining on their body. He glares into her eyes, a dull and boring brown against the shimmering emerald green of his own, takes in the lack of gills around her neck and wonders if cutting a pair of slits with his claws would help her breathe underwater. He entertains the thought for one second, while she looks back at him with a perplexed look, eyes bugging out in utmost terror.

Is this her first time meeting a merman, he wonders? It must certainly be. His kind isn’t prone to make acquaintances with humans; the females lure their ship, the males cause the sea storm that sinks them. That’s how it’s always been, and he’s not about to change anything in that pattern.

Except he already did.

“You’re alive.” He points out, somewhat accusingly. As if he’d taken personal offense. As if he wasn’t the one who snatched her away from death’s arms.

She almost flinches at the severity of his tone, struggling for a brief second before she can find her voice, “Y-Yes… t-thank you.”

His lips frown with distaste at her words.

“Stupid girl.” Mocks Ulquiorra, gesturing proudly at the raging sea. The sky thunder over the wreckage, dancing waves swallow everything in their path. “It was I who brought down your ship.”

“I know,” Her voice, though shaking in a mix of fatigue and revulsion, is almost defiant. “So why did you save me?”

White as the sand beneath them and shiny as the stranded seashells on the beach, his skin glistens ghostly under the sunshine. She realizes that every inch of his body is covered with scales. From his face, framed by his stern expression, to his majestic tail of jade green.

“You don’t belong in the water.” He warns, bringing her out of her reverie. “Don’t come back again.”

Before she has a chance to reply, a big wave washes down the shore and she’s all alone in the beach. 

.

But she does come back, and no matter how he lies to himself about it, he keeps waiting for her.

.

She dips her bare feet into the sand and leaves a trail of footsteps along the way to the place where he waits for her every day. She comes to him with stories about bakers and smiths and four-legged horses, with treats he refuses to taste and gifts that slowly melt underwater. He always sits in silence, watching her eyes gleam with marvel as she speaks, curious of how the sun kisses her peach skin to a lovely hue of red and the sea breeze tangles in her strawberry curls. He sits with her until her voice is hoarse from talking, until the horizon paints the sky a similar shade of her hair, until the evening wind is so chilly that her legs start shaking. 

They become unlikely friends, as much as he wants to deny it. She opens up her heart and pours all her secrets and dreams out to him, never asking him to do the same.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” She asks him one day, pecking at fresh baked bread she brought for him, which he refused to try.

“Merfolk don’t have souls.” He replies, unfazed.

To his surprise she laughs, carefree and genuine. “Who told you that?”

Ulquiorra doesn’t answer. It’s common knowledge, after all. He never thought it was necessary or practical to question it.

They stay silent from a while, she watching the imminent sundown and he lost in the possibility of lost causes.

“I’m leaving,” She says out of the blue, face turned to take in his reaction. A crumb of  bread falls into her feet, soon to be washed away by the waves. “To a faraway place, up in the north mountains. They say I’ll like it there. That the air won’t be thick and it won’t smell rotten.” Her voice is empty as the words she recites by memory. Ulquiorra doesn’t move, doesn’t make a sound to her monologue and she takes that as an invitation to keep going, “But I don’t think it’s true. I love the smell of this beach. I wish I could take it with me. I wish you could come with me.”

For the first time, he looks back at her, his eyes vacant and expressionless. She turns her sight to the setting horizon.

“D-Do you… believe in soulmates, Ulquiorra-kun?” She repeats, her fingernails digging into the embroidery of her golden dress, the hem damp and heavy with sea water.

“Merfolk—”

“I’m going to marry.” She interrupts, eyes swelling with unshed tears. “The prince in the castle up the North Mountains.”

Ulquiorra's stomach feels oddly light weighted, as if he hadn’t eaten for days.

“You don’t seem happy about it.”

She chuckles sadly, an odd gestured that arouses his concern.

“I was promised to him before I was even born. We don’t really have a choice.”

He seems to consider her words for a brief moment, weighing the rationality behind them and failing to understand. “You humans are so strange."

The girl sighs with what he thinks to be resignation, and emotion he hardly discerns. “We are indeed, aren’t we?”

“And your king won’t assist your situation?”

“Sora? Oh, no. I can’t do that.” She shakes her head vehemently, dismissing the smallest possibility of consideration. “It’d be sentencing our countries to war. And what is one person’s happiness against the life and safety of thousands?”

There it was, that thing about her that he couldn’t ever begin to comprehend.

“So you are sentencing yourself to a lifetime of suffering.”

Her laugh is bright and clear this time, he’s left puzzled at her sudden change of attitude. “Who knows? Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe he’s my soulmate.”

She’s met with a kind of silence that reminds her of their first encounter in that same beach.

.

.

“Where have you been?” The girl cries, her tone pitching between relief and indignation as he emerges from the lagoon. “I’ve been waiting for you all week!”

_Humans are rotte_ n _in hypocrisy,_ the merman thinks to himself as he swims lazily to her. She’s the one who’d been gone missing the past few weeks, too busy in her romantic adventure to spare some time for him.

“I’ve come to say goodbye,” Her voice is strained, almost desperate. “I might never come back.”

He takes one second to let her words sink in, yet doesn’t let himself be bothered by the empty feeling burning through his chest. She looks at him expectantly, as if waiting for a response he can’t give her.

_What difference would it make, anyway?_

“Farewell, then.” Ulquiorra flicks his tail around and without a second look at her he heads towards the ocean, leaving her behind.

“Wait!” She shouts at the crashing waves, “Don’t leave like this, please!”

The ocean breeze drown her words, together with the last memory of her —the only memory of her he wants to forget.

 

* * *

  _—Once, twice, times upon a time—_

* * *

 

 

The room is so dark when he opens his eyes that it takes him a while to realize he’s awake. Chest heaving at his rapid heartbeat, Ulquiorra brushes a hand over his forehead, bangs damp with a thin layer of sweat. He fells exhausted, as if he’d just run a marathon instead of sleeping. The dream replays in his mind like an old movie told in snapshots; yet he remembers it with overwhelming accuracy: the color of her hair, a pair of feet buried in the sand, the furious raging of a sea storm. He licks his lips expecting to taste the sea water, holds his fingers before his face in search for scales. Realization sinks in —it was just a dream. He doesn’t want to delve too much into reversed fairy tales that don’t make sense, no matter how realistic they might be.

The boy pulls himself out of bed and shrugs his shirt off, soaked with sweat from his almost-nightmare. On the way back from his wardrobe he picks up the cellphone resting on his desk.

Four AM.  

Sweeping his fingers over the screen, he reads six more messages from Grimmjow sent three hours ago. It makes him wonder why he even needs friends, but childhood acquaintances are something he really treasures, even when the one and only he has gets unbearable at times. A resigned sigh escapes his lips as he types a one-word reply to his incessant text messages:

_Fine._

The lights on his bedroom are on —it’d be pointless trying to go back to sleep. Ulquiorra yawns against his palm before turning his attention to his laptop. Now seems like a good time to be looking for places near his university, but Tokyo is expensive and his family too big, he doesn’t want to become a burden to his parents. Co-renting a decent place nearby would do, and what he saves of transport plus any part time job he can find will make up significant part for his tuition.

Morning meets him as he circles down a name and an address. He closes his laptop and gets ready for the day. It promises to be a productive one, and it’s not even seven AM.

.

.

.

Karakura is quiet in the most ominous way, and Ulquiorra can’t help but feel uneasy about this strange town. Grimmjow, on the other hand, seems ecstatic to have his best friend sitting at the bleachers of his long-awaited baseball match —the last, since they’re graduating — even when he proves to be the worst cheerleader of all time.

Stoic and expressionless, Ulquiorra stares at the blue sky imagining it filled with dark clouds of grey, the omen of an impending storm forming.

He’s brought back to reality by the sudden high-pitched cheers of the crowd, and people around him start moving. The match must be over. Down the arena, there's a small commotion of people gathering around both teams. He spots Grimmjow celebrating with his teammates, the smuggest smile hanging on his face. Ulquiorra can feel his own lips curling. He’s happy for the bastard. Maybe now he can have some quiet time too, although knowing Grimmjow he will probably pester him with rennactings of his heroics for the next week or so. He’ll cope, as always.

Something suddenly catches his attention. A faint glint of burnt orange hair amidst the crowd, waist length and unmistakably familiar, makes her way to exit the grounds. Time stops for a second before he realizes she’s getting away. Without a second thought he darts out to from his seats and follows, heart pounding madly on his chest. He must know. _Her face, her voice, her name_ —

A tight grasp on his shoulders stops him from the chase. Grimmjow's brows furrow into a preoccupied expression as he asks, “Oi, where are you going?” 

Ulquiorra scoffs with frustration . When he turns around to seek for the girl, she’s gone.

 

* * *

  _—When you never loved me back—_

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Your comments will be much appreciated :)


End file.
